I wouldn't go as far as "extremely useful", but at the very least, I'd say there are some nice-to-have conveniences.
First, there's the whole fitness tracking thing. I'm sure the number of calories my watch said I expended isn't the actual number of calories I expended, but I'm also sure it does correlate with how active I've been, and has therefore been helpful in encouraging me to be more active.
Second, it offers a better way of handling notifications. I get too many notifications on my phone, but I don't want to turn them all off. Having a smart watch lets me have a 2-tier notification system. I set it so only important things go to my watch. When one goes off, it feels like someone gently tapping my wrist, and I can glance casually at my watch to see what it is. I don't have to do anything as overt as reaching into my pocket, pulling out my phone, unlocking it, and scrolling through the notifications every time I get one. It's only important notifications, and it doesn't disrupt whatever I'm in the middle of doing.
Similarly, it gives me quick, easy access to a small amount of information. A glance at my watch not only tells me the time and date, but the weather and my next calendar appointment. I've heard people comment, "Yeah, but why bother putting it on your wrist when you can just reach into your pocket and look on your phone?" Ok, but why bother having a wrist watch at all when you can have a pocket watch? Because for something you want to check quickly and easily throughout the day, having it on your wrist is easier. You don't have to go digging through your pockets, and even if you have your hands full, you can usually sneak a quick glimpse without breaking your stride or having anyone notice.
And part of it it, it keeps me from screwing around with my phone. Once I open up my phone, there's a web browser and email and games-- just too many things that contribute to the always-online distraction that's a plague to modern society. Though the watch technically allows some input, it's impractical. There's nothing really to do with it. Though I can install apps, I don't. The phone with all my apps stays in my pocket for most of the day, and the watch only gives me a small set of pre-determined information.
Are you paid shill, a Russian spy, or just a terrible person with no judgement?
I'd actually like to know, but obviously I can't trust whatever answer you give, and it's so hard to tell these days. I'm just going to assume that, in any case, you're not worth talking to.
Ok, so your version of UBI specifically doesn't actually pay enough for people to live off of, thereby guaranteeing that people will need to work. That's an interesting idea, but I don't think that's what most proponents of UBI have in mind, considering that it's supposed to cover people who can't work.
I'm not failing to address or misrepresenting your points. You're just not making sense. I'm not 100% sure if you're arguing in bad faith, or simply dimwitted, so I'll address your two points more directly:
1. Because it wouldn't really make sense for Zuckerberg to go to jail for Russia's espionage. That'd be like putting the head of United Airlines in jail for the 9/11 attacks. Not only it this whataboutism, but it's a really poor, stupid version of it.
2. What election do you want me personally to interfere with, and why? Because I don't know who you think you're talking to, but I'm not an intelligence agency and don't have the resources of one. I also don't particularly approve of meddling in other countries elections, and don't want the US government to be doing that. Also, I don't see that there should be a relationship between the size of the economy and the ease of fixing the election. If you're referring to Russia, for example, it's much harder to fix an election when it's a sham election run by a dictator who stuffs ballot boxes and murders political opponents. Relatively honest elections in less corrupt societies are easier to sway.
I am not a patriot, but that wouldn't be towards the US anyway.
Great, so not only are you spouting irrelevant nonsense and bad arguments, but you don't even have any interest in the entities involved. That sounds like a great reason for our discussion to end here.
Nobody in the former Soviet Union actually believed anything they read in the Pravda. It was a given that they'd lie, embellish and simply tell you whatever you're supposed to hear. These people had pretty good senses when it came to detecting bullshit stories.
Yes, but arguably, what we're suffering from is sort of the opposite problem. In Soviet Russia, people didn't believe the big important newspaper because it was full of bullshit. In America now, people don't believe the big important newspaper because they think it's full of bullshit, but it's actually more or less telling the truth.
Apparently, this was a strategy that Putin and his people helped develop, where they undermine trust in everything. They know you won't believe the state-controlled news, so they instead get you to think that the independent news is also lying just the same, and that neither is really better or worse. Because then people start thinking they're independent thinkers who can't be fooled, which actually makes them more susceptible to manipulation. Or for the people they can't manipulate as easily, the whole process is so fatiguing that they eventually give up and stop paying attention.
because paying someone 800 bucks now is (to him) equal to paying him 200, when 600 come from UBI.
Except he'll get $600 either way, so he's still only seeing a $200 increase in pay for all of his hard work.
Believe me, I'm all in favor of automation. And I think one of the strengths of the argument for UBI is, assuming automation will put a lot of people out of work, you'll need some way of dealing with the coming wave of unemployment. However, I think we have to recognize that we're unlikely to completely do away with manual/menial labor anytime soon. Even if we imagine an eventual world where robots can do all of those jobs, there will be several decades (at least) of transition, from the time when massive numbers of jobs start to get wiped out, until robots can just do all the things that need to be done.
So in that meantime, during that time, you're going to need some kind of workforce doing those crappy jobs. If you get to the point where 50% of the menial jobs go away, and all those people are then given a livable wage for nothing, it's not clear that the other 50% still doing menial jobs will be happy to continue doing them, for a similar wage to what they'd get if they did nothing.
And you could say, well we'd pay them enough that they'd be motivated to do that work, but then that might just lead to inflation.
Incidentally, I'm not saying I know what the answer is. Maybe it's better to figure out how to get a lot of people to work part time at menial jobs for a livable wage, instead of some people getting stuck working full time while others can do nothing. But then maybe we're straying into the "guaranteed work" camp. Also, it raises some questions about division of labor, experience, and expertise-- will 4 janitors each scrubbing toilets 10 hours a week do the job the same as 1 janitor working 40 hours. Maybe they won't do as much as well, because they don't really get into a groove and learn as much about doing the job? Maybe they'll do better, because they can come to the job with more rest and less stress and frustration?
(Keep in mind that "janitors" and "scrubbing toilets" is just a stand in for all the various kinds of work that we tend to think of as "menial". Some of those jobs require quite a bit of training and expertise, and require people to care about doing a good job.)
It's a "huge problem" that's been going on, in some form or another, for pretty much all of human history.
Murder has been going on, in some form or another for pretty much all of human history. So why worry about murder? Give me any problem, and I'll argue that it's been happening in some form or another for pretty much all of human history, so why worry about anything?
The reality of politics is that we will always face this level of threat from anybody, ally or enemy, so the solution is to train our politicians to be a little less stupid.
Let me guess, you also think that the solution to rape is to "stop dressing so provocatively"? The solution to school shootings is, "step sending your kids to schools, which is where all these shootings keep happening!"
They could have convinced a million voters in Texas, and it would have had no effect. However, I've seen no suggestion that they had any efforts that were particularly effective in swing states.
There's actually evidence that they were targeting swing states, both in their hacking and their social media campaigns. It's impossible to really know how much of an effect that we have, especially when the President is stonewalling investigations and attempts to increase security. I wonder why he would do that?
DNC and Hillary got hacked so voters voted for Trump. Right, makes complete sense.
Russia hacked the DNC and selectively released damaging information. They did not do the same thing against the Republicans. That gave the Republicans an advantage which probably swayed a number of votes. The Russians also got into voter registrations. We haven't really gotten the full story there yet, but there are reports that they may have altered some voter information, making it harder for some people to vote. They also had a massive misinformation campaign, which surely swayed some votes.
What do you mean "election systems" ? Voters ? If voters are hackable, it is already game over for the US... You are crying over spilt milk in both the cases.
So your argument here is basically, "Democracy is over and our country is screwed, so why are you complaining?" Great. That makes a lot of sense.
Republicans and Democrats did not have a massive propaganda campaign?
A political campaign isn't as bad as deliberately misleading voters. A private US political organization trying to mislead voters is also not as bad as an intelligence agency, a bunch of spies, using their expertise as spies to mislead voters. A bunch of US spies trying to mislead voters is again probably not as bad as spies from a hostile foreign government trying to mislead US voters.
So yeah, insofar as the DNC is trying to mislead voters, that's bad. I'd condemn it. And if the CIA were trying to rig our election, I'd think that was very bad indeed. But having the modern equivalent of the KGB rigging our election is an extreme situation.
Your argument is just more whataboutism. It's Jeffrey Dahmer saying, "Yeah, I got caught raping and and eating people, but what about that guy who got caught jaywalking?! We both broke the law, but you're letting him go with a slap on the wrist!" It's not the same thing.
If they can, the US is a failed state anyway. Then, what is a big deal if they did?
What's the big deal if the US is a failed state? Wow, you sound like a true patriot there. I mean, by that logic, you could argue, "Who cares if North Korea and Iran get nuclear weapons? The US is a complete failed state, so we should just surrender to ISIS and let them take over. What's the big deal?"
Well no, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a Chromebook is not the product for me. But I'm responding to an ad where Google seems to be trying to convince me that it is for me (or at least people in general).
Last I checked on ChromeOS, using ChromeOS for your main computer was a bit like trying to use an iPad as your main computer. Like... yeah, for some people it'll work. But generally, no.
I'm not anti-ChromeOS. I've used it in the past, and it's... nice-ish. It's more that, insofar as they're taking aim at Windows/MacOS, I think they're not a sufficient replacement for many people yet. I, like you, can't use it as my main or only computer, and I only need so many computers for myself.
Ok, I think we agree that the current situation isn't the same as what the American people were contending with a decade or two ago. The Internet and social media have made a bunch of things worse, and I think the problem of deepfakes (or other video forging techniques) is likely to cause some big problems in the future.
I just disagreed that we have no history of being subjected to false information (or outright lies).
I kinda feel compelled to try something like this, for scientific curiosity, of course...
Please don't. Aside from the political strife it's likely to cause, we just don't need any Donald Trump porn in the world, real or fake.
The only reason they might have, but probably didn't, affect the election is because the Dems ran about the only candidate that could lose to Trump in a general election.
That's entirely irrelevant. Even if you totally ignore who the candidates were and which one won, it's still a huge problem that Russia is engaging in such a big campaign to hack and influence our elections.
The fact that phishing was a component of the "hacking" and shitposting was a component of the propaganda campaign doesn't make it any better. That's like saying, "Don't worry that your wife was murdered. It was only stabbing. It's not like she was shot or something!" The precise method isn't at issue. The effect is the problem.
And finally, just as a side note, the Russians almost certainly changed the outcome of the election. Trump won by a few thousand votes in a couple of states. At the level that Russia was campaigning on his behalf, it's very hard to imagine that they didn't saw a few thousand votes in a couple of states.
I don't know what the current state of ChromeOS is, but there have been a handful of things that have made it unappealing for me.
1) The focus on web apps. I tend to want local native apps. They provide a more consistent UI when they take cues from the OS GUI instead of just being "whatever the web developer thought looked cool." Also, I don't want to figure out what I have to do to get my word processor to work when I'm in airplane mode.
2) The focus on web storage. I want my computer to generally work offline without needing to plan ahead. I generally don't want to have to think, "Oh, I'm gong offline soon, so I should make sure to sync the files I need to my local storage." I just want all my stuff to be there when I need it.
3) Being tied to Google. I have a Google account, but I don't particularly like the idea that I need a Google account just to use my computer. Thought admittedly, Apple and Microsoft have been moving in the same direction, being more aggressive to push you to use iCloud and Microsoft/Azure accounts. Still, I don't like it.
Why can't someone just make a good, reliable, modern computer that works out of the box, without trying to force any personal assistants, online services, app stores, or VR nonsense on you?
What scope and scale? Buying Facebook ads? Are you joking?
A concerted and sustained effort to hack the DNC and Hilary Clinton. The successful hacking of various election systems across the country. A massive propaganda campaign that included Facebook and a dozen other sites. Coordination with one of the campaigns to fix the election.
Most likely, the intelligence agencies of a hostile foreign government swayed the outcome of our presidential election. How is that not a big deal?
But no, go change the subject. Talk about Media Matters.
The problem is that the US population has no history of being subjected to false information and outright lies.
I think that's slightly naive. For as long as there's been information, there's been misinformation. I'd sooner place the problem as being inherent to human psychology, that we hear what we want to hear, believe what we want to believe, and we're easily manipulated. If you think you can't be manipulated, that just means you're easier to manipulate.
Now there are some other factors contributing to our problems. For one, we've had a long period of peace and prosperity. You have a bunch of people who are complacent and fail to recognize just how bad things can get. Meanwhile, you have a new technology that makes mass manipulation that much easier, and most of the world is run by people who have no understanding of that new technology. And there are a bunch of other factors, and it all makes for a troubling combination.
There's not an easy solution. You can say that better education might improve things, but we have some serious disagreements about what constitutes "better education", and whether there should be public education at all. So it's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem.
Why don't we care about all the other countries and/or intenational groups or individuals that are also attempting the same stuff. Why not a single story that talks about anyone but Russia?
Listen, there might be other countries with some level of misinformation and propaganda, and nobody is saying those propaganda campaigns shouldn't be stopped, but nothing has been uncovered of the scope and scale of what Russia has been doing. It's a little like saying, "Why doesn't anyone care about all the jaywalking that goes on? Why does everyone keep talking about the serial killer that murdered 35 people?"
You have to have a little perspective. One of our biggest adversaries has been aggressively tampering with our elections. It's a big deal.
Would be nice if we could collectively be intelligent enough to form our own opinions.
Yeah, but apparently we aren't, so the next question is, how is this going to work?
I don't think Facebook's job is to decide what influence is desirable or undesirable, but at the same time, they've put themselves in the position of responsibility. If they do nothing to control the situation, it doesn't make them less responsible. They're still responsible for making a powerful tool of mass manipulation and then failing to prevent abuse.
I think the goal should generally be to create transparency. If various groups want to mount propaganda wars on Facebook, then at a bare minimum, Facebook should be identifying the which content is being pushed by which group. That should include attempts to identify people who misrepresent themselves, e.g. paid shills and political astroturfers. And if the posts are illegal, as is the case with Russian spies, then that should be reported to law enforcement.
So let's accept your numbers for the sake of argument, even though I think they're completely unrealistic. But now let's flip your question around: What do you plan to do about the 3% of toilet-cleaning work that still needs to be done?
Because that's what the conversation started from. The question, "Don't we need someone to do those 'you want fries with that' jobs?" Whether it's working at McDonalds or cleaning toilets, or changing diapers for old senile people, there will be dirty jobs that someone needs to do. The idea of a social welfare program that simply frees everyone from any compulsion to take that job raises a problem: Some of those jobs will still be needed. Someone will still need to do some of those jobs. So who's going to do them, and why?
Yes, you still need workers, but you need very, very few. Instead of 30 people scrubbing, you have one person looking.
What about the side of the toilet? The area around the toilet? The wall next to the toilet?
And yes, I won't have a robot toilet. But I also don't hire anyone to scrub mine. And neither does anyone else, except maybe the proverbial 1% who can't be assed to clean their own toilet.
I suppose you've never been in an office building or a restaurant, where there are shared/public toilets? You've never even been in a school? Oh... I guess you've never been in a school. That makes sense of how poorly thought out your argument is.
So you've learned nothing? You still just are going to dismiss the idea out of hand, without even hearing whatever the argument is, even though you basically know nothing about it?
Well I give up. I can deal with stupidity and foolishness, but not willful ignorance.
Yeah, I saw that. It still doesn't seem like you're terribly informed or that you've thought it through.
For example, what are you actually including in that $1 trillion? It seems low. Are you talking about all medical, welfare, unemployment, food stamps, and veterans benefits? What about subsidies meant to keep prices low? State and local spending? How are you taking the minimum wage into account? What about tax breaks and tax credits?
Also, are 30% of people living below the poverty line? I thought the number was somewhere closer to 10-15%. You also assume that the disbursement would be per-person, but it could easily be per-household.
I'm not a proponent of UBI and don't know all of the ins-and-outs of the argument. And if they really want to stretch their numbers, they could try to include things like the productivity lost by having the poor people navigate the bureaucracy, or law enforcement and court costs for people who try to cheat the system. There's a lot of room for speculating how a change that big could change an economy, which means there's a lot of potential for wiggle room.
But I'm not even trying to argue that the UBI actually would be more efficient, but just that the proponents argue that it is. You start with the assumption that it's supposed to be a bleeding heart moralistic giveaway, and you never bothered to find out anything about it.
Well I agree... to a point. For example, I don't think it's controversial to think that law enforcement can get involved in cases of fraud, or that courts can hear slander and liable cases. There are times when a disreputable source of information needs to be taken to task, but there has to be a very high standard for that.
But what I was arguing is more that, there's a particularly knee-jerk reaction towards anything resembling censorship, and we worry about true things being labelled "fake news" by someone with an agenda. And fair enough, that's happening a lot lately. But I wish it were so simple as "people should always be able to say what they want!"
I just mean to point out that, dangerous propaganda doesn't only come in the form of dismissing important true news as "fake". It also comes in the form of promoting false or misleading information as "true", and we can't forget that. People jump too quickly on the bandwagon of "freedom of speech" as "I can say anything I want without consequence or accountability", which can easily be abused by powerful people with malicious intent.
Unless it's automated to the point where the whole bathroom gets hosed down with soapy water, rinsed, and dried automatically, you still need someone to clean the toilet and surrounding area. And as you recognized, even at that point, you need someone to check on the automated systems.
However, even if and when we reach that point, how many places will invest in them? Do you think every house, apartment, business, and industrial bathroom will be converted to a self-cleaning version? Because if not, then yeah, there will still be people scrubbing toilets.
Slashdot Mirror
Not the guy you asked, but here's my 2 cents:
I wouldn't go as far as "extremely useful", but at the very least, I'd say there are some nice-to-have conveniences.
First, there's the whole fitness tracking thing. I'm sure the number of calories my watch said I expended isn't the actual number of calories I expended, but I'm also sure it does correlate with how active I've been, and has therefore been helpful in encouraging me to be more active.
Second, it offers a better way of handling notifications. I get too many notifications on my phone, but I don't want to turn them all off. Having a smart watch lets me have a 2-tier notification system. I set it so only important things go to my watch. When one goes off, it feels like someone gently tapping my wrist, and I can glance casually at my watch to see what it is. I don't have to do anything as overt as reaching into my pocket, pulling out my phone, unlocking it, and scrolling through the notifications every time I get one. It's only important notifications, and it doesn't disrupt whatever I'm in the middle of doing.
Similarly, it gives me quick, easy access to a small amount of information. A glance at my watch not only tells me the time and date, but the weather and my next calendar appointment. I've heard people comment, "Yeah, but why bother putting it on your wrist when you can just reach into your pocket and look on your phone?" Ok, but why bother having a wrist watch at all when you can have a pocket watch? Because for something you want to check quickly and easily throughout the day, having it on your wrist is easier. You don't have to go digging through your pockets, and even if you have your hands full, you can usually sneak a quick glimpse without breaking your stride or having anyone notice.
And part of it it, it keeps me from screwing around with my phone. Once I open up my phone, there's a web browser and email and games-- just too many things that contribute to the always-online distraction that's a plague to modern society. Though the watch technically allows some input, it's impractical. There's nothing really to do with it. Though I can install apps, I don't. The phone with all my apps stays in my pocket for most of the day, and the watch only gives me a small set of pre-determined information.
Are you paid shill, a Russian spy, or just a terrible person with no judgement?
I'd actually like to know, but obviously I can't trust whatever answer you give, and it's so hard to tell these days. I'm just going to assume that, in any case, you're not worth talking to.
Ok, so your version of UBI specifically doesn't actually pay enough for people to live off of, thereby guaranteeing that people will need to work. That's an interesting idea, but I don't think that's what most proponents of UBI have in mind, considering that it's supposed to cover people who can't work.
I'm not failing to address or misrepresenting your points. You're just not making sense. I'm not 100% sure if you're arguing in bad faith, or simply dimwitted, so I'll address your two points more directly:
1. Because it wouldn't really make sense for Zuckerberg to go to jail for Russia's espionage. That'd be like putting the head of United Airlines in jail for the 9/11 attacks. Not only it this whataboutism, but it's a really poor, stupid version of it.
2. What election do you want me personally to interfere with, and why? Because I don't know who you think you're talking to, but I'm not an intelligence agency and don't have the resources of one. I also don't particularly approve of meddling in other countries elections, and don't want the US government to be doing that. Also, I don't see that there should be a relationship between the size of the economy and the ease of fixing the election. If you're referring to Russia, for example, it's much harder to fix an election when it's a sham election run by a dictator who stuffs ballot boxes and murders political opponents. Relatively honest elections in less corrupt societies are easier to sway.
I am not a patriot, but that wouldn't be towards the US anyway.
Great, so not only are you spouting irrelevant nonsense and bad arguments, but you don't even have any interest in the entities involved. That sounds like a great reason for our discussion to end here.
Nobody in the former Soviet Union actually believed anything they read in the Pravda. It was a given that they'd lie, embellish and simply tell you whatever you're supposed to hear. These people had pretty good senses when it came to detecting bullshit stories.
Yes, but arguably, what we're suffering from is sort of the opposite problem. In Soviet Russia, people didn't believe the big important newspaper because it was full of bullshit. In America now, people don't believe the big important newspaper because they think it's full of bullshit, but it's actually more or less telling the truth.
Apparently, this was a strategy that Putin and his people helped develop, where they undermine trust in everything. They know you won't believe the state-controlled news, so they instead get you to think that the independent news is also lying just the same, and that neither is really better or worse. Because then people start thinking they're independent thinkers who can't be fooled, which actually makes them more susceptible to manipulation. Or for the people they can't manipulate as easily, the whole process is so fatiguing that they eventually give up and stop paying attention.
because paying someone 800 bucks now is (to him) equal to paying him 200, when 600 come from UBI.
Except he'll get $600 either way, so he's still only seeing a $200 increase in pay for all of his hard work.
Believe me, I'm all in favor of automation. And I think one of the strengths of the argument for UBI is, assuming automation will put a lot of people out of work, you'll need some way of dealing with the coming wave of unemployment. However, I think we have to recognize that we're unlikely to completely do away with manual/menial labor anytime soon. Even if we imagine an eventual world where robots can do all of those jobs, there will be several decades (at least) of transition, from the time when massive numbers of jobs start to get wiped out, until robots can just do all the things that need to be done.
So in that meantime, during that time, you're going to need some kind of workforce doing those crappy jobs. If you get to the point where 50% of the menial jobs go away, and all those people are then given a livable wage for nothing, it's not clear that the other 50% still doing menial jobs will be happy to continue doing them, for a similar wage to what they'd get if they did nothing.
And you could say, well we'd pay them enough that they'd be motivated to do that work, but then that might just lead to inflation.
Incidentally, I'm not saying I know what the answer is. Maybe it's better to figure out how to get a lot of people to work part time at menial jobs for a livable wage, instead of some people getting stuck working full time while others can do nothing. But then maybe we're straying into the "guaranteed work" camp. Also, it raises some questions about division of labor, experience, and expertise-- will 4 janitors each scrubbing toilets 10 hours a week do the job the same as 1 janitor working 40 hours. Maybe they won't do as much as well, because they don't really get into a groove and learn as much about doing the job? Maybe they'll do better, because they can come to the job with more rest and less stress and frustration?
(Keep in mind that "janitors" and "scrubbing toilets" is just a stand in for all the various kinds of work that we tend to think of as "menial". Some of those jobs require quite a bit of training and expertise, and require people to care about doing a good job.)
It's a "huge problem" that's been going on, in some form or another, for pretty much all of human history.
Murder has been going on, in some form or another for pretty much all of human history. So why worry about murder? Give me any problem, and I'll argue that it's been happening in some form or another for pretty much all of human history, so why worry about anything?
The reality of politics is that we will always face this level of threat from anybody, ally or enemy, so the solution is to train our politicians to be a little less stupid.
Let me guess, you also think that the solution to rape is to "stop dressing so provocatively"? The solution to school shootings is, "step sending your kids to schools, which is where all these shootings keep happening!"
They could have convinced a million voters in Texas, and it would have had no effect. However, I've seen no suggestion that they had any efforts that were particularly effective in swing states.
There's actually evidence that they were targeting swing states, both in their hacking and their social media campaigns. It's impossible to really know how much of an effect that we have, especially when the President is stonewalling investigations and attempts to increase security. I wonder why he would do that?
DNC and Hillary got hacked so voters voted for Trump. Right, makes complete sense.
Russia hacked the DNC and selectively released damaging information. They did not do the same thing against the Republicans. That gave the Republicans an advantage which probably swayed a number of votes. The Russians also got into voter registrations. We haven't really gotten the full story there yet, but there are reports that they may have altered some voter information, making it harder for some people to vote. They also had a massive misinformation campaign, which surely swayed some votes.
What do you mean "election systems" ? Voters ? If voters are hackable, it is already game over for the US... You are crying over spilt milk in both the cases.
So your argument here is basically, "Democracy is over and our country is screwed, so why are you complaining?" Great. That makes a lot of sense.
Republicans and Democrats did not have a massive propaganda campaign?
A political campaign isn't as bad as deliberately misleading voters. A private US political organization trying to mislead voters is also not as bad as an intelligence agency, a bunch of spies, using their expertise as spies to mislead voters. A bunch of US spies trying to mislead voters is again probably not as bad as spies from a hostile foreign government trying to mislead US voters.
So yeah, insofar as the DNC is trying to mislead voters, that's bad. I'd condemn it. And if the CIA were trying to rig our election, I'd think that was very bad indeed. But having the modern equivalent of the KGB rigging our election is an extreme situation.
Your argument is just more whataboutism. It's Jeffrey Dahmer saying, "Yeah, I got caught raping and and eating people, but what about that guy who got caught jaywalking?! We both broke the law, but you're letting him go with a slap on the wrist!" It's not the same thing.
If they can, the US is a failed state anyway. Then, what is a big deal if they did?
What's the big deal if the US is a failed state? Wow, you sound like a true patriot there. I mean, by that logic, you could argue, "Who cares if North Korea and Iran get nuclear weapons? The US is a complete failed state, so we should just surrender to ISIS and let them take over. What's the big deal?"
Well no, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a Chromebook is not the product for me. But I'm responding to an ad where Google seems to be trying to convince me that it is for me (or at least people in general).
Last I checked on ChromeOS, using ChromeOS for your main computer was a bit like trying to use an iPad as your main computer. Like... yeah, for some people it'll work. But generally, no.
I'm not anti-ChromeOS. I've used it in the past, and it's... nice-ish. It's more that, insofar as they're taking aim at Windows/MacOS, I think they're not a sufficient replacement for many people yet. I, like you, can't use it as my main or only computer, and I only need so many computers for myself.
Ok, I think we agree that the current situation isn't the same as what the American people were contending with a decade or two ago. The Internet and social media have made a bunch of things worse, and I think the problem of deepfakes (or other video forging techniques) is likely to cause some big problems in the future.
I just disagreed that we have no history of being subjected to false information (or outright lies).
I kinda feel compelled to try something like this, for scientific curiosity, of course...
Please don't. Aside from the political strife it's likely to cause, we just don't need any Donald Trump porn in the world, real or fake.
The only reason they might have, but probably didn't, affect the election is because the Dems ran about the only candidate that could lose to Trump in a general election.
That's entirely irrelevant. Even if you totally ignore who the candidates were and which one won, it's still a huge problem that Russia is engaging in such a big campaign to hack and influence our elections.
The fact that phishing was a component of the "hacking" and shitposting was a component of the propaganda campaign doesn't make it any better. That's like saying, "Don't worry that your wife was murdered. It was only stabbing. It's not like she was shot or something!" The precise method isn't at issue. The effect is the problem.
And finally, just as a side note, the Russians almost certainly changed the outcome of the election. Trump won by a few thousand votes in a couple of states. At the level that Russia was campaigning on his behalf, it's very hard to imagine that they didn't saw a few thousand votes in a couple of states.
I don't know what the current state of ChromeOS is, but there have been a handful of things that have made it unappealing for me.
1) The focus on web apps. I tend to want local native apps. They provide a more consistent UI when they take cues from the OS GUI instead of just being "whatever the web developer thought looked cool." Also, I don't want to figure out what I have to do to get my word processor to work when I'm in airplane mode.
2) The focus on web storage. I want my computer to generally work offline without needing to plan ahead. I generally don't want to have to think, "Oh, I'm gong offline soon, so I should make sure to sync the files I need to my local storage." I just want all my stuff to be there when I need it.
3) Being tied to Google. I have a Google account, but I don't particularly like the idea that I need a Google account just to use my computer. Thought admittedly, Apple and Microsoft have been moving in the same direction, being more aggressive to push you to use iCloud and Microsoft/Azure accounts. Still, I don't like it.
Why can't someone just make a good, reliable, modern computer that works out of the box, without trying to force any personal assistants, online services, app stores, or VR nonsense on you?
What scope and scale? Buying Facebook ads? Are you joking?
A concerted and sustained effort to hack the DNC and Hilary Clinton. The successful hacking of various election systems across the country. A massive propaganda campaign that included Facebook and a dozen other sites. Coordination with one of the campaigns to fix the election.
Most likely, the intelligence agencies of a hostile foreign government swayed the outcome of our presidential election. How is that not a big deal?
But no, go change the subject. Talk about Media Matters.
The problem is that the US population has no history of being subjected to false information and outright lies.
I think that's slightly naive. For as long as there's been information, there's been misinformation. I'd sooner place the problem as being inherent to human psychology, that we hear what we want to hear, believe what we want to believe, and we're easily manipulated. If you think you can't be manipulated, that just means you're easier to manipulate.
Now there are some other factors contributing to our problems. For one, we've had a long period of peace and prosperity. You have a bunch of people who are complacent and fail to recognize just how bad things can get. Meanwhile, you have a new technology that makes mass manipulation that much easier, and most of the world is run by people who have no understanding of that new technology. And there are a bunch of other factors, and it all makes for a troubling combination.
There's not an easy solution. You can say that better education might improve things, but we have some serious disagreements about what constitutes "better education", and whether there should be public education at all. So it's a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem.
Why don't we care about all the other countries and/or intenational groups or individuals that are also attempting the same stuff. Why not a single story that talks about anyone but Russia?
Listen, there might be other countries with some level of misinformation and propaganda, and nobody is saying those propaganda campaigns shouldn't be stopped, but nothing has been uncovered of the scope and scale of what Russia has been doing. It's a little like saying, "Why doesn't anyone care about all the jaywalking that goes on? Why does everyone keep talking about the serial killer that murdered 35 people?"
You have to have a little perspective. One of our biggest adversaries has been aggressively tampering with our elections. It's a big deal.
Would be nice if we could collectively be intelligent enough to form our own opinions.
Yeah, but apparently we aren't, so the next question is, how is this going to work?
I don't think Facebook's job is to decide what influence is desirable or undesirable, but at the same time, they've put themselves in the position of responsibility. If they do nothing to control the situation, it doesn't make them less responsible. They're still responsible for making a powerful tool of mass manipulation and then failing to prevent abuse.
I think the goal should generally be to create transparency. If various groups want to mount propaganda wars on Facebook, then at a bare minimum, Facebook should be identifying the which content is being pushed by which group. That should include attempts to identify people who misrepresent themselves, e.g. paid shills and political astroturfers. And if the posts are illegal, as is the case with Russian spies, then that should be reported to law enforcement.
Ok, so part of the idea of UBI is to have significant salary inflation? If so, that seems like it's worth understanding.
So let's accept your numbers for the sake of argument, even though I think they're completely unrealistic. But now let's flip your question around: What do you plan to do about the 3% of toilet-cleaning work that still needs to be done?
Because that's what the conversation started from. The question, "Don't we need someone to do those 'you want fries with that' jobs?" Whether it's working at McDonalds or cleaning toilets, or changing diapers for old senile people, there will be dirty jobs that someone needs to do. The idea of a social welfare program that simply frees everyone from any compulsion to take that job raises a problem: Some of those jobs will still be needed. Someone will still need to do some of those jobs. So who's going to do them, and why?
Yes, you still need workers, but you need very, very few. Instead of 30 people scrubbing, you have one person looking.
What about the side of the toilet? The area around the toilet? The wall next to the toilet?
And yes, I won't have a robot toilet. But I also don't hire anyone to scrub mine. And neither does anyone else, except maybe the proverbial 1% who can't be assed to clean their own toilet.
I suppose you've never been in an office building or a restaurant, where there are shared/public toilets? You've never even been in a school? Oh... I guess you've never been in a school. That makes sense of how poorly thought out your argument is.
You didn't listen. You don't learn. You throw out numbers based on nothing.
There's no point in arguing with you, any more than there's a point in arguing with a wall.
So you've learned nothing? You still just are going to dismiss the idea out of hand, without even hearing whatever the argument is, even though you basically know nothing about it?
Well I give up. I can deal with stupidity and foolishness, but not willful ignorance.
Yeah, I saw that. It still doesn't seem like you're terribly informed or that you've thought it through.
For example, what are you actually including in that $1 trillion? It seems low. Are you talking about all medical, welfare, unemployment, food stamps, and veterans benefits? What about subsidies meant to keep prices low? State and local spending? How are you taking the minimum wage into account? What about tax breaks and tax credits?
Also, are 30% of people living below the poverty line? I thought the number was somewhere closer to 10-15%. You also assume that the disbursement would be per-person, but it could easily be per-household.
I'm not a proponent of UBI and don't know all of the ins-and-outs of the argument. And if they really want to stretch their numbers, they could try to include things like the productivity lost by having the poor people navigate the bureaucracy, or law enforcement and court costs for people who try to cheat the system. There's a lot of room for speculating how a change that big could change an economy, which means there's a lot of potential for wiggle room.
But I'm not even trying to argue that the UBI actually would be more efficient, but just that the proponents argue that it is. You start with the assumption that it's supposed to be a bleeding heart moralistic giveaway, and you never bothered to find out anything about it.
Well I agree... to a point. For example, I don't think it's controversial to think that law enforcement can get involved in cases of fraud, or that courts can hear slander and liable cases. There are times when a disreputable source of information needs to be taken to task, but there has to be a very high standard for that.
But what I was arguing is more that, there's a particularly knee-jerk reaction towards anything resembling censorship, and we worry about true things being labelled "fake news" by someone with an agenda. And fair enough, that's happening a lot lately. But I wish it were so simple as "people should always be able to say what they want!"
I just mean to point out that, dangerous propaganda doesn't only come in the form of dismissing important true news as "fake". It also comes in the form of promoting false or misleading information as "true", and we can't forget that. People jump too quickly on the bandwagon of "freedom of speech" as "I can say anything I want without consequence or accountability", which can easily be abused by powerful people with malicious intent.
Unless it's automated to the point where the whole bathroom gets hosed down with soapy water, rinsed, and dried automatically, you still need someone to clean the toilet and surrounding area. And as you recognized, even at that point, you need someone to check on the automated systems.
However, even if and when we reach that point, how many places will invest in them? Do you think every house, apartment, business, and industrial bathroom will be converted to a self-cleaning version? Because if not, then yeah, there will still be people scrubbing toilets.